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Comment by goodcanadian | Hacker News Reader

There is such a thing as leading by example. It is imperfect, to be sure, but it does have an effect. At the moment, Canada is one of the worst countries in per capita greenhouse gas emissions, so perhaps, we can try to do a bit better before blaming other countries. Someone has to go first.

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Lead by example? If you think China gives a crap about your example you’re horrendously naive.

Especially when you consider the economic impacts of "going first" it puts the CCP in a position where they're likely to gain the economic output you've banned, and then use that to gain even more of an upper hand against you

What are you talking about. China has already “gone first” they drove solar costs down below fossil fuel energy production cost. The change to green energy and decarbonization is a huge Keynesian economic stimulus. Decarbonizing is not about impoverishing yourself it’s about modernizing everything with tools that are demonstrably better in almost every way using government backed debt. It’s going to be a huge driver of GDP growth for the next 25-50 years. The political blocker here is that a lot of members of the capital class are very invested in the current fossil fuel energy production paradigm and will have relatively less wealth on the other side of this transition.

The reality here is we can and should use a nearly infinite amount of debt to finance decarbonization. Debt is “borrowing money from the future” and do you think anyone 50 years from now will be saying “I think we should have spent less money on decarbonzing?”, absolutely not. There is no world in which we can muscle the political will to spend that much money today, so for all intents and purposes consider it an unlimited credit line.

“ China has already “gone first” ”

Nobody believes this. China has a horrible record when it comes to pollution, and to make the opposite claim is a bit outlandish.

Here’s a question: why does 75% of all Bitcoin mining occur in China[0]?

[0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22256-3

Naive is only considering the absolute amount of emissions within some arbitrarily drawn lines on a map.

The only metric that is fair, and countries like China will consider fair, is per-capita emissions. A Canadian can't justify causing three times as many CO2 emissions as a Chinese by virtue of being Canadian alone.

Per-capita emissions may be fair if it looked at where products are consumed, but in my experience the data only looks at emissions produced divided by population. Producer countries like China and especially Canada with their energy industry will look worse than they actually are because other countries have effectively outsourced their CO2 emissions to these countries.

That's very true.

You have the option of either attributing these emissions to the consuming country, or to not do so and hope that it creates a trade-equilibrium as a side-effect, where each country produces within their CO2 limits.

Either way, even though China is a producer country and far from being clean or sustainable, its emissions are still way behind certain large first world countries.

We (that is North America and the heart of Europe save France) really need to make more of an effort, only if to not look like massive hypocrites when we ask China to turn green.

There is a large push towards nuclear within China right now though - with a lot of research coming out of that country as well - they might beat us to the punch anyways.

> that is North America and the heart of Europe save France

Rest assured that France is really keen on carbonising its electricity supply and closing a significant number of its nuclear plants, thus going back into the fold of its European neighbours. Stupidity knows no border.

We do have that data:

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$line$data$fi...

Thanks very much! Following through a list of source links this seems to be the primary source for that data:

https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/9/3247/2012/bg-9-3247-201...

Staking the future of the climate on trusting countries to be fair is childish thinking.

The ONLY metric that matters is global gigatons of CO2 emitted per year. This needs to decrease. Playing hand waving games with per capita between countries is pure nonsense and provides cover for emitters.

I was trying to highlight the insulting nature of the post I replied to by repeating the same insult verbatim.

I wasn't trying to start a comment chain where everyone's comment is prefaced with "You're naive/childish/stupid".

Countries are sovereign units of control that we've divided ourselves into. To actually get some meaningful work done we have to hold some countries into account. Example: the US obviously needs to be held to account for pulling out of the Paris agreement, since it's the worst offender in both per-capita and total consumption-based emissions, despite having the capabilities to change that (being rich).

yes we can. We live in a more northern environment, necessitating high CO2 emissions. Maybe not three times, but factor in the fact that Canadians are so distantly spread out adds more weight to the necessity of Canadians having higher CO2 emissions per-capita than China. It's not apples to apples comparison.

Why is it China's problem that Canadians choose to live in a northern climate in a "distantly spread out" fashion? They could just as easily argue that their higher absolute CO2 emissions is "necessary" given their higher population.

Every country can come up with a list of excuses as to why they should be entitled to produce CO2. At the end of the day we need to start with taking responsibility for our own emissions before we start telling other countries what to do.

Canada could blow up or start producing 10 times per person it wouldn't matter. Look at the global numbers. China is the world's problem if you believe in climate change.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/920/idt2/idt2/9cc12cf8-9b60-4f...

If Canada started producing 10x per person it would be the worlds second largest emitter. So yeah, it would matter.

Pretending this is exclusively China’s problem when the rest of the world produces 3/4 of global emissions and a significant percentage of China’s emissions are a result of demand from the West, is simply nonsensical.

We will not get out of this by focusing on spinning stats or trying to focus attention on per capita vs. absolute figures. This problem requires collective action.

CO2 emmissions should be allocated per great grand-parent and shared amongst all descendents equally. i.e. allocate on the population when the 3rd industrial revolution started.

Simple per-capita emissions unfairly favours those who like to procreate irresponsibly on a resource-constrained planet.

China cares about its reputation. You can't push China around, but it is a bit sensitive to it.

Not OP, but I can address this. Leading by example does not compel anyone to act, it works the same way that nuclear treaties do not reduce nuclear arms. But we still have treaties and we have had no nuclear war in the last 70 years. Leading by example is necessary but not sufficient for carbon reduction. But it removes accusations of hypocrisy when talking about solutions, which makes discussions much more productive.

China does have climate policy and it’s and issue that they do not ignore. They plant trees at the interface of deserts to prevent their expansion, they produce 80% of the worlds solar panels. China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.

China has a lot to lose from climate change. They will see reduced agricultural production from prairie land, in a country of over a billion people. A starving population will not allow the current regime to continue and the Chinese government has every reason to come to the table.

> China does have climate policy and it’s and issue that they do not ignore. They plant trees at the interface of deserts to prevent their expansion, they produce 80% of the worlds solar panels. China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.

Sounds like you are avoiding the core question surrounding the real issue at hand - China and India are among one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas. There is no policy that can change that fact.

> There is no policy that can change that fact.

That statement is completely false. There are many policies that China and India can enact to reduce production of greenhouse gasses.

- put a price on carbon emissions (ex: California cap and trade)

- put a tax on carbon (ex: Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act)

- provide grants or tax breaks to clean energy projects

Why focus on China and India, when on a per capita basis they have a small fraction of the carbon footprint that we have in Canada and the US? When we can get our per capita carbon footprint down below theirs, then maybe we'll have a right to criticize their environmental policies. But in the meantime if we're being at all objective, trying to point a finger at them makes us look like absolute hypocrites.

If you read the Great-grand parent comment, which I authored. I advocated for the US to lead by example to encourage other nations to drop their GHG emissions to zero.

Having China and India, being large producers of GHGs, reduce their emissions is necessary but not sufficient to stop further climate change.

I agree about the West's hypocrisy, but per-capita emissions is a red herring. Regardless of how many people live there, the Chinese government controls the most polluting economy in the history of civilization. The CCP is thus in the position to help more than any other entity in the world right now.

Because removing Canada completely doesn't begin to solve the issue. You need to look at total pollution by country because decisions are made at the country level.

What policy are you suggesting? Are you implying that the Chinese (and Indians) are somehow less deserving of living their lives out of poverty and in relative comfort? Because that's what this is ultimately about. These are both countries with huge populations. Populations who until recently were extremely poor. They are becoming less so, sometimes at speeds that are hard to fathom.

Do you want to be the person to tell 1 billion Chinese that, no, they can't buy a fridge?

China and India aren't vomiting greenhouse gases just to screw the rest of the world. They're doing it to feed their people and enable them to live their lives.

Why is China producing 5 times more greenhouse gas than India at similiar populations?

> China and India are among one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas. There is no policy that can change that fact.

Fine, I'll bite. Presume for a second that the partitioning of India didn't end with Pakistan and Bangladesh, but that the entire sub-continent split into 15 odd countries each with the population of Mexico.

Would you still be demanding that just these 15 countries carry the disproportionate burden of solving climate change?

You wouldn't, because is would be painfully, obviously dumb to ignore other similar sized groups of countries (Europe, SE asia, etc.)

India and China obviously emit more, because they are - uniquely - single countries with continent sized populations.

They don't suddenly earn some moral burden for that in an atmosphere that is without borders.

China produces much for the world. Offshoring production to them has put them in a unique position where they produce much of the world's greenhouse gases.

Population size doesn't matter.

China produces 5 times more than India. More than double the US at similiar economic levels.

China is the problem. China is the solution.

China produces more greenhouse gases than all developed nations combined.

> China is the problem. China is the solution.

Then I assume the west will ensure China has access to any and all technology that they decide they need, when they need it, how they need it, to reduce their carbon footprint.

Because that is what it is going to take.

>> If you think China gives a crap about your example you’re horrendously naive.

Tell that to the legions of Chinese immigrants who have flocked to Canada in recent years. It happened during the Hong Kong handover too. The Chinese see Canada as the more tolerant alternative to the US. Canada's opinion on China matters because that opinion is shared by the many Chinese people living in Canada. What is naïve is to ignore the family and social connections between the countries.

By and large the CCP shapes the internal narrative with respect to China, and increasingly globally. Social connections be damned.

The Chinese will think what the CCP wants them to think.

I say this as someone who has lived in China and with family in China.

There are different groups in China. The bulk of the people will never travel internationally. They don't have much money/influence in the country. The ones that visit Canada are the rich and powerful. They are the leaders. They are the ones that will go home and set CCP policy. They visit Canada and see clean water and reasonable living standards are possible. When they go home they will demand those things. They will demand change when their college-age kids studying in Canada don't want to come home, or don't stay long when they do. That sort of slow influence can be more effective than the threat of violence.

If that's true, then it's doesn't take a genius to sugget a multi-pronged strategy.

1) Lead be example. If that fails:

2) Import-tax the f@ck out of them, unless they comply with regulations.

3) Goto (1).

Carbon taxes and tariffs would work yes. But you're imposing serious costs on people that they haven't shown any desire to support. Further, tariffs would disproportionately impact the poor in the developing world.

I'm 100% against the embargo of Cuba ... but let me use that as an example of: "it's not as if the US hasn't/isn't doing exactly that in other arenas".

But I take your point, and I'm not sure of the solution.

The solution is economic, just not via tariff or tax. Clean energy must supplant dirty energy at scale. The only way for this to happen is to make it cheaper so the developing world will use it instead.

> tariffs would disproportionately impact the poor in the developing world.

So will climate change, and more so.

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